2024 MARE NOSTRUM – BARCELONA
- May 29-30, 2024
- Prelims/Finals: 9 am / 5 pm local, 3 am / 11 am ET
- Barcelona, Spain
- LCM (50m)
- Olympic Qualifying Event
- Meet Central
- Entries
- Live Results
- Livestream
The 2024 Mare Nostrum – Barcelona stop is rife with aquatic talent, including some newcomers to the Tour that didn’t appear last weekend in Canet.
Making his 2024 Mare Nostrum debut in a big way was 19-year-old David Popovici of Romania, contesting his pet event of the men’s 200m freestyle.
After coasting to the 5th seed in a morning outing of 1:48.16, Popovici pounced into action when the medals were on the line. The teen ultimately got to the wall in a head-turning 1:44.74 to grab the gold ahead of reigning world champion Hwang Sunwoo of Korea.
Hwang settled for silver in a still-stellar result of 1:45.68 while Japanese national champion Katsuhiro Matsumoto rounded out the podium in 1:46.09.
Tonight, Popovici split 24.65/26.80 (51.45)/26.73/26.56 (53.29) to beat the field by nearly a second, punching a new season-best in the process.
Popovici’s time overtook his previous season-best of 1:45.10 logged at April’s Romanian Championships. Additionally, Popovici’s 1:44.74 established both a new Barcelona stop as well as an overall Mare Nostrum Tour Record in the event.
The Barcelona record formerly stood at the 1:45.91 South African Matt Sates put on the books in 2022. The overall Tour record was set much farther back, with Germany’s retired world record holder clocking 1:44.88 in 2005.
Popovici now ranks 4th in the world in this highly competitive men’s 200m free. A remarkable 7 men have already delved under the 1:45 barrier with the Olympics on the horizon.
2023-2024 LCM Men 200 Free
POPOVICI
1:43.13
| 2 | Lukas MÄRTENS | GER | 1:44.14 | 04/27 |
| 3 | Sunwoo HWANG | KOR | 1:44.40 | 09/27 |
| 4 | Matthew RICHARDS | GBR | 1:44.69 | 04/07 |
| 5 | Duncan SCOTT | GBR | 1:44.75 | 04/07 |
what is Popovici’s in-season best time for 200F?
This
Paul biedermann is the most overrated swimmer in history, and I cant STAND it, when people are trying to do this revisonist history on what he did, calling him one of the greatest swimmers and all that bs. The reason most people like myself hate his records moreso than any other supersuit record is the lack of Olympic success or any international wins on the world stage. Its pretty hilarious to think he has 0 Olympic medals. Cesar at least got a bronze in the Olympics post super suit era. Zhang Lin does have an Olympic medal and had to retire post 2009 due to a crazy virus medical condition that wouldn’t let him breath properly. For other people, they… Read more »
I too would like to see those records broken by non-supersuited swimmers BUT:
That being said, I would love to see all the super-suit records go down this year.
No way he’s the most overrated in history, in fact he’s probably underrated due to the amount of unwarranted hate he gets. He set those records fair and square in 2009, was simply the best out of anyone with the super suits. And even post-2009 he had a solid career, super consistent 1:45 guy and was a mainstay on the intl 200 Free stage for the better part of a decade. Also managed to break 1:45 in textile which was impressive given how stagnant the 200 free was during the 2010s. Even if you eliminate 2009, he had a better career than 99.9% of swimmers ever will.
My man go swim, stop hating
Men’s 200 free will be extremely exciting!
Can’t wait already for Paris!
He’s back
This is right at his best time at world champs last year (1:44.70 in semis).
7 weeks before the Olympics seems to be the perfect time for NUMEROUS swimmers who had been written off to pop back up
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZGe4opCHu/
David’s gonna dominate the 2 free in Paris but the 100 is gonna be more complicated.
what an exciting race this will be in Paris. I dont think USA has much of a chance to get on podium.